No Good Can Come From It

Monster bike

Georgie was certain before she even said anything that they would not heed her warning. Perhaps it was because she was only eight years old. Maybe it was because she was merely a girl. Or it could just be that her brothers were stupid!

John and Paul just never paid her any mind. Despite this, Georgie couldn’t resist telling her two older, and according to them, wiser brothers that no good could come from their newest attempt to create a monster.

Georgie had been reading her freshly acquired book--the second in the Harry Potter series-- from her favorite rocking chair on the porch and she had a perfect view of the driveway where John and Paul were busy with bits and pieces from three separate broken bicycles acquired from their wanderings about the neighborhood. They were currently putting them together in such a way as to create a working...something. Why they felt the need to do this was anyone’s guess. The boys each had a new mountain bike in the garage and therefore had no need for another.

            

It seemed that the boys’ main objective in life was to make something out of other people’s junk. The neighborhood knew the boys as the Junk Collectors and they valued their service. What service? After school and on weekends they would roam the streets going from door to door and asking their neighbors for their junk, that which they no longer wanted. It was amazing how very eager these folks were to allow these boys entrance to basements, attics and garages when they offered to remove things that had outlived their usefulness.

The brothers would return home to their garage workshop with wheelbarrows and wagons filled to overflowing with everything. They collected broken lawn mowers, old hair curlers, moldy humidifiers, ancient magazines, ugly lamps, mismatched furniture and even a fondue pot still in the original packaging. If they had been a bit more entrepreneurial, they could have been charging a fee for such a wondrous service, but all they wanted was the stuff. 

Georgie heard John say that the bike was ready for a test run and she wondered if she should alert the paramedics now or wait until their mom accessed the damage. It was certainly a good thing that their mother was an emergency room nurse, because the boys always needed something looked after. Georgie hated to wake her if anything should happen just now, though. She had only just come back from a grueling shift at the hospital and had left strict instructions not to be disturbed unless someone stopped breathing or started bleeding. Georgie felt sure that one of these was bound to happen and very soon.

John, being the oldest at age eleven, did most of the building and Paul was the designated gopher and test dummy. Georgie thought “dummy” to be quite accurate. She didn’t see him as being too bright. He was the one to sustain most of the injuries, but for the longest time she had no clue why he should be called a gopher when he looked nothing like one. 

Her dad had told her-- laughing to the point of being almost incoherent-- that it was because Paul had to “go for” the hammer or “go for” the wrench. She made a face and still thought it was stupid, but, again, no one really cared what she thought. Her parents were not in the slightest concerned about all these mad creations. As a matter of fact, they actually encouraged it much to the dismay of poor little worrisome Georgie.

Their dad was totally useless in the fixing department and since John had been old enough to hold a screw driver he had been the one to do many household repairs--and rather well too!--with his father at times being more of a hindrance than a help. They must figure that the more tinkering the boys did the better they would get at repairs. What Georgie didn’t know was that her parents allowed the tinkering mainly to keep her safe. Their daughter had been too young to remember what the boys had done to her a few years back. 

 It had been the end of the school year and in a fit of exuberance John and Paul had taken shovels in hand and dug what they called a trap for vicious animals. It was very easy digging in their sandy backyard and the hole they dug was so deep that in order for them to get back out of it John had to climb onto Paul’s shoulders, scramble out and then pull Paul out.

They then put their little sister into the hole and left her there for nearly four hours. Any other child would have screamed and fussed enough to have been rescued sooner, but she had her favorite book with her, a massive collection of Disney stories complete with vivid illustrations that kept her quite content. 

When her ashen-faced mother had finally found her all Georgie asked was “Did you have a nice nap, Mama?”

After pulling her daughter out and hugging her fiercely she said, “My poor little Georgina, you’re to be an only child soon…once I catch your brothers!”

After this incident, anything that kept the boys’ attention away from terrorist activities was quite welcome, in their parents’ eyes.

John and Paul were now dragging out their make-shift ramp that they used for fancy bike tricks and even Harry Potter’s troubles with the Heir of Slytherin couldn’t keep Georgie from watching. Paul was on the bike and heading up the ramp when the front tire fell off and he went flying and landed crumbled onto the pavement. 

She shrieked, threw down her book and ran to Paul. She thought he must be dead because he was so still but then he said, rubbing his head, “I always forget to use the bike helmet.”

“Paul, you’re bleeding! I’m getting Mom,” Georgie cried but before she could go John grabbed her by the wrist stopping her.

“It’s not that bad. All he needs is a bandage,” John said casually. He had an immense capacity for pain, as long as it was someone else’s pain.  Paul might have thought differently--He did look ready to cry-- but he did not want his older brother to think him a wimp, so he shrugged it off. John gave him a hand up and the two of them went to get the first aid kit with Paul limping all the way.

Georgie glared at their retreating backs. Boys are just so dumb! Why didn’t they ever listen to girls who knew better than to put themselves in danger?

It seemed that at the ripe old age of eight years our poor little lass had stumbled upon one of the basic facts of life which was, for the most part, girls are careful, cautious and can clearly see when no good can come from it.

Alas, she failed to see another basic fact--we shall forgive her for this due to her young age—which is: nothing ventured, nothing gained.